Chapter 62
Sam got him and Little Moe out of sight quick, and Elaine tottered after as fast she could lug the box in her Jimmy Choos. As for me, I was still limping along like a man doing the three-legged race solitaire when the lead vehicle came around the curve, and its headlights pinned me like road kill in the making.
I stood and watched, too drained really to be afraid. It was a caravan of four vehicles: two minivans stuffed with Hmong, a low-rider Impala filled with some enthusiastically bullet-headed Mexican kids I’d never seen before, and Big Moe’s Taurus.
“Where is he, you son of a bitch?” Moe shouted hoarsely from the shotgun seat of his ride, holding a bloody rag to the side of his head, his eyes red and crazed. His skinny white brother JoJo was driving, bony knuckles strangling the steering wheel. “Where’s Little Moe?”
“Right here,” Sam said, leading Little Moe from the tree-line for his uncle’s inspection.
Big Moe yelped as he got out the car. A pistol fell and clattered on the asphalt as he dropped to both knees and embraced Little Moe.
Big Moe stood and stalked over to me. He grabbed me hard by the shoulders and ogled me up and down, taking in the makeshift tourniquet tied around my leg.
And then, so help me, this big corn-rowed young black man kissed me full on the lips. Sam smirked at me as Big Moe clutched me hard against him and I patted rapidly at his shoulder.
Big Moe finally let go and turned to face away from us all. His shoulders shook a little while he aimed his broad back at us, but his face was perfectly composed when he finally turned around to face our way again.
“Okay,” was all he said, in a voice that didn’t sound pessimistic at all. He picked up his rod and we all piled into the Taurus.
Chapter 63
When we got back to the Gardens it looked like a fire ant nest someone had kicked open. People ran around or stood in groups, cars roaring every which way. An old white-haired black lady waved a meat cleaver, yelling. The Gardens had finally had enough.
A mob swirled to surround the car as we pulled up in front of Little Moe’s house. A low moan came from the milling crowd as we got out and Little Moe ran toward the open front door of his bungalow crying, “Mommy.”
His mother sprinted out the door panting and gasping; she scooped him up with a shriek, held him tight enough I was afraid for his health. They disappeared inside, no one following to intrude on their reunion.
Everyone headed toward the Gardens’ entrance, so Sam and I followed. I still leaned on his shoulder; my leg had stiffened up something awful.
“I am proud of you, son, proud of you for always standing up to me,” I said. “And I’ve admired all along how loyal you are to Karl. You should be; he was a hell of a man. You’re right that he did all the thinking for us back in the day.
“But I started thinking for myself the day I saw you in your Mom’s arms. And I’m not the man I was before I went to prison, please tell me you see that.
“You’re right, too, about us not having any history before – that was stolen from us, it’s not your fault nor mine. But now I know you some – I’ve gotten to see who you are a little bit. You rock, kid. You did one helluva good job tonight.”
“We can never replace what they took; it’s down the tubes.” I studied his face as we gimped along, ignoring the hustling mob around us. “We still got the future, though, don’t we, Sam? We still have time to make something.”
“Check this,” Sam said, jerking his chin toward our front.
I turned to follow Sam’s look. We were at the entrance to the Gardens, and every male of fighting age stood there in a silent throng; a lot of the women were there too. Everyone had weapons: guns and baseball bats; knives; straight razors.
The Hmong were off to one side, sticking to themselves as usual – an AK and a couple of M-16s leaned against the backs of their minivans, ready to grab. One of the Asians had a blanket-wrapped bundle at his feet that looked suspiciously like a rocket launcher.
The 18th Street Crips were in position, and they came up to join Sam and me. “They’re coming for us,” Big Moe said, voice breathless and eyes wide. “I just got the word from one of my contacts. They’re coming to clean us out all the way.”
I heard a lot of cars coming down the highway from the direction of town but couldn’t see anything for a moment for the trees. Then the first vehicle appeared on the ridgeline, its headlights panning over our faces as it turned down the access road and started around that big loop of road surrounding the empty lots.
Another vehicle came into view, and another and another, hundreds of them in a slow moving line – motorcycles and pickup trucks, cars and vans, even a couple of buses. Stagger Bay was coming to call on the Gardens, in force.
Chapter 64
I’d only been chumming when I used Reese to send the message the Gardens were about to break, and asked Elaine to expose her jugular on TV. I’d just been looking for the opening, trying to flush the Driver and his cronies. Now the bill had come due: Stagger Bay’s sharks were coming up-current along the scent trail, intent on a feeding frenzy.
One after the other, vehicles came around past us and turned into the empty cul-de-sacs and courts in the vacant lots across the avenue. As they parked, the drivers and passengers got out their vehicles and walked up to the sidewalk on the development side, standing to our front with only the avenue dividing us. They were all armed too: axe handles; hunting rifles; shotguns – an arsenal as varied as our own.
They muttered disjointedly amongst themselves until one strident woman’s voice bawled out, “Niggers.”
A few of them enthusiastically chanted the word a few times but most of the crowd refused to join in, their pained looks indicating embarrassment. The open bigots finally stopped and our enemies subsided into the background mumble of any would-be mob working itself up into a tizzy.
The murmuring horde grew steadily until we were outnumbered vastly, with more vehicles arriving and parking behind them in a steady, seemingly endless stream. Then one man crossed the avenue toward us, his hands open at his sides to show he was unarmed.
“Peace to the Gardens,” he said. “I’m here to stand with you.”
It was Takeshi. He saw me in the crowd and walked up with a sheepish grin. “If you still want to work the dock, Markus, you’ve got a job with me. Fuck’em.”
A half-dozen women got out of a VW micro-bus and came to join us, every one of them dressed in black. The women pulled candles from their purses and lit them, turning to face the direction they’d come from with the lit tapers cupped in both hands. The surviving Peace Women: If the casualties they’d suffered before or the comments shouted their way now gave them pause, they showed no sign of it.
A vintage root beer Bentley pulled up and parked a little ways away from the other cars. Jim Scallion got out and gave me a shy wave before joining us, the best dressed man in the crowd.
Others continued to join us: Nurse Dorcas, under the arm of a tall skinny guy I recognized as one of the interns that attended me at the Hospital; Sara and her fellow librarian; others either vaguely familiar or unknown to me.
At first Moe seemed dumbfounded, but the organizer in him stepped up to the plate without delay. He greeted every new arrival to our side of the street, giving them all a gracious welcome as if they were invited guests he’d known were coming all along; as if it were no more than his due they were here. Moe pumped their hands if they let
